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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History

XIV: To the Emperor Trajan - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero [1909]

Edition used:

Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero: with his Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, trans. E.S. Shuckburgh. And Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, trans. William Melmoth, revised by F.C.T. Bosanquet (New York: P.F. Collier, 1909).

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XIV

To the Emperor Trajan

Having safely passed the promontory of Malea, I am arrived at Ephesus with all my retinue, notwithstanding I was detained for some time by contrary winds: a piece of information, Sir, in which, I trust, you will feel yourself concerned. I propose pursuing the remainder of my journey to the province1 partly in light vessels, and partly in post-chaises: for as the excessive heats will prevent my travelling altogether by land, so the Etesian winds,2 which are now set in, will not permit me to proceed entirely by sea.

[1 ]Bithynia, a province in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, of which Pliny was appointed governor by Trajan, in the sixth year of his reign, 103, not as an ordinary proconsul, but as that emperor’s own lieutenant, with powers extraordinary. (See Dio.) The following letters were written during his administration of that province. M.

[2 ]A north wind in the Grecian seas, which rises yearly some time in July, and continues to the end of August; though others extend it to the middle of September. They blow only in the day-time. Varenius’s Geogr. v. i. p. 513. M.